Quote:
Originally Posted by Andrew H.
Yes. And the version on the Kindle is not the OED. The OED itself notes that the term is not always offensive. Specifically, it has a list of quotes "a. Used by whites or other non-blacks as a relatively neutral (or occas. positive) term, with no specifically hostile intent."
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That's certainly the way it was used in Britain, at least up to the 1960s. I hope that nobody believes that Agatha Christie was being deliberately racist, for example, in titling a book "Ten Little Niggers" in 1939.
There was a particular shade of brown that was always known as "nigger brown" in my childhood (in the late 1960s) and there was absolutely no derogatory meaning associated with the name.